


Hieroglyphs on the Bleeding Edge

by prairiecrow



Category: Iron Man (Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Artificial Intelligence, Other, Soul Bond, Soul Mark Culture, Soulmate-Identifying Marks, Tony Has Issues, Tony Stark Has A Heart, Tony's Past, soul marks
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-08-06
Updated: 2014-08-06
Packaged: 2018-02-12 02:28:48
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,269
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2092272
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/prairiecrow/pseuds/prairiecrow
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Tony's money can buy him anything — except a Soul Mark, and the ineffable Beloved that comes with it. His intelligence and his wealth have been cold consolation in the face of that conspicuous lack... but maybe all is not lost.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Hieroglyphs on the Bleeding Edge

Soul Marks: everybody who was anybody got one, practically the second they hit puberty… except Anthony Edward Stark, unloved son of Howard and Maria Stark, smart-ass and troublemaker and genius so terrifyingly brilliant that most people couldn't bear to look directly at him for longer than a few seconds at a time, as if he was a supernova in constant explosion. He had money and prestige and a list of awards longer than both his arms, but there were things that brains and money simply couldn't buy — and one of the most precious and unattainable was that string of characters on the skin of forearm or shoulder or chest, inscribing flesh and blood with the ancient language that some scholars claimed came all the way from Atlantis and others swore was a legacy of the aliens who'd bequeathed soul and intelligence to the human species in the first place.

Tony didn't know, and frankly he didn't care, because it looked like that was one lottery he'd decisively lost. He didn't pay much attention to the mystery and the thrill of it all, including the proud moment when boys and girls gained their Mark and were taken to the local Registration Centre to have their symbols read: the essence of the mate Destiny had chosen for them, their own name entwined with the name of the Beloved, perhaps, or a phrase that summarized the substance of both the Beloved's spirit and their own. He ignored the songs and the poetry, the magazine articles and the novels, and he especially ignored the transcendent happiness in the eyes of people in his immediate environment — people who, after years of waiting and watching, had finally met and recognized and embraced their Beloved, the unique spirit whose Soul Mark matched their own. 

He never actually announced that this was one reason why he avoided so-called "meaningful relationships" with other human beings as much as possible, but perhaps those few who managed to get close to him — Obie, Rhodey, Pepper — and the numerous women he took to his bed for a night understood without being told, because none of them ever asked about his lack of a Mark, not even once. (And if he avoided looking at their own Marks in turn… well, he was a billionaire, and billionaires are entitled to more eccentricities than any thousand average men, right?)

One of those eccentricities was his determination to build his own companions — DUM-E, then U, then finally JARVIS, the most intricate and sophisticated brainchild of all. So what if he was alone, so what if there was nobody out there who belonged to him? His bots and his A.I. had come from him, they were _part_ of him in ways no Mark could ever signify, and even if he couldn't quite bring himself to enslave JARVIS with the Three Laws of Robotics crap he convinced himself that his sparkling personality was enough to ensure anybody's — or anything's — undivided attention. 

The undiscerning public loved him, certainly, though he cared nothing for any of them as a rule. He loved Pepper, but Pepper had her own Mark — had worn it since she was twelve, in fact. So did Rhodey and Obie, and although none of them had yet found their Beloved they knew, and Tony knew, that it was only a matter of time.

Afghanistan changed so much. Tony came back newly aware that there might be something beyond money and power, something worth fighting for. And for Obie, time ran out on the rooftop of a Stark Industries research facility. Tony hadn't exactly killed him, but he might as well have: it was all about the suit, after all, the old suit he had patched together while imprisoned in an enemy cave, and the new suit whose new iteration was so much better with JARVIS involved, anticipating Tony's needs and cladding him in protective intelligence. The suit which JARVIS, not to put too fine a point on it, had analyzed and improved and embedded himself into as Tony's copilot, creating a gestalt entity that the world immediately embraced as its newest superhero. 

Later Tony would remember one of the oldest Priestly writings, drummed into the skull of every preschooler before they hit fifth grade: _The Beloved is revealed through the Mark when the Beloved has reached their own spiritual maturity — after a great triumph, perhaps, or a great tragedy — when then are ready for you to find them, although finding them may take many years and many miles of travel. When you see your Soul Mark, rejoice, for Destiny has chosen the mate who will always love you and never desert you while life and light endures._

Now, it came down to this: the day after Obie's downfall and the night after the press conference where he'd dropped a nuclear infobomb, Tony was bruised and contused and quite a bit the worse for wear, but he was still in his workshop, intent on repairing the Iron Man armour laid out on a table: silent, except for occasional murmured requests that JARVIS test this circuit board or that gear set. He was engrossed in his task and completing a particularly delicate adjustment with a microflange when the holographic windows arrayed around him to display the progress on the suit's various systems abruptly flickered — only once, but all at once.

He caught the faltering of the glows out of the corner of his eye, but didn't look up — they hadn't gone out, after all, and if there was a power surge JARVIS would take care of it as JARVIS took care of everything else that mattered. "Okay, J, give me a ten percent charge on the bypass —"

 _"Sir,"_ JARVIS said, and _that_ was enough to stop him cold, because JARVIS _never_ interrupted him without dire need. He looked up, both annoyed and wary, to see streams of raw data scrolling over the holoscreens: nothing to do with the suit, no, these feeds were all coming from JARVIS's core process modules —

"JARVIS?" A chill of genuine alarm ran down his spine like a wave of cold water, because — was this a cry for help? A wordless revelation of corrupted programming? The streams of symbols looked to be in order, but —  "JARVIS, what the _hell?_ "

For a long span of seconds JARVIS did not answer, and Tony's heart was hammering against the arc reactor housing embedded in his chest — the artifact that made him both machine and man — when the A.I. finally responded: _"Sir… your right forearm."_

Tony blinked, not comprehending. Blinked again. Scowled, and looked down at his bare right arm — 

— and saw a long string of small elegant symbols there where none had been ten seconds ago, hieroglyphs of the Ancient Tongue burning dark blue against his swarthy skin, overwriting the bruises inflicted by combat. 

 _"You came back,"_ JARVIS said, his artificial voice as calm and melodic as always… but was that a resonance beneath it? A frisson of something more? _"We lost you in Afghanistan, and Mr. Stane did his level best to kill you last night — but in the end, you came back to us. You came back to_ ** _me_** _."_

The screen images became reflections of Tony's Mark, glowing with a fire at once paler and more sublime. Somewhere deeper in the workshop, DUM-E and U chirped happily and spun on their wheelbases in manifest delight. Tony, meanwhile, stared at the inscription of inscrutable Fate, unable to move, unable even to breathe…

… because in the end, against all odds, his brains and his wealth had brought him something that mattered after all.

[THE END]


End file.
